Run Rabbit Run
by PlaidButterfly
Summary: So you skid into the afterlife still on fire, but somehow you get your leg back so it's all quite all right, really.
1. The Hanged Man

So you skid into the afterlife still on fire, but somehow you get your leg back so it's all quite all right, really. What you weren't expecting to see, however, was another version of yourself. He looks quite dignified in his black robes. You do not. Because you are wearing blue jeans and a button-down shirt in very muggle style. Also, because you are still on fire, but to be honest that seems like a minor quibble at this point.

The other-you is bleeding from his neck. You ask if it was Nagini.

"Yes, actually."

Both of you say in unison: "Always hated that damn snake."

You laugh. The other-you doesn't even crack a smile. You take this as a sign that maybe he is just not quite as jolly about being dead as you are, or maybe not quite as on fire as you are, to be honest, it is getting rather hard to tell.

"How did you…?" The other-you asks, gesturing to you in a vague way. You understand immediately what he means, and reply that it's a long story. Then you consider. Sure, it's a long story, but you've now got all the time in the world, now, haven't you? You tell this to the other-you, and you laugh again (he does not laugh at all).

You wonder aloud where somebody can get some vodka in this damn place, then decide no time is better than the present to start in on your tale.

It all started, see, because you cared too much. That's been your hamartia, your tragic fatal flaw, that brought you down into this Aristotelian fallen hero status all over the midwestern United States. You had just been too damn clever.

In another universe, the also-you would decide that, opportunities and logic be damned, he was a wizard and was going to stay a wizard. A very sensible solution, right up until having one's throat gnawed on by a giant snake, anyway.

But you? Oh no. Not you.

You had the feverish idea to do this spy thing _properly._

And there are few things more foolish or terrifying than _that_.

So you borrowed Dumbledore's old service revolver (as per required by all in service in the Great War, back when Voldemort wasn't a household unmentionable) and wholeheartedly abused the magical constraints of the Room of Requirement, and honestly you're still not sure how the room managed to fit a traffic obstacle course in it but you were thankful for the chance to learn to drive anyhow. Not that you admitted it at the time. Everything was muggle and hideous. Everything was filth you had to shower off at the end of the day.

Until the day you couldn't, of course. You weren't really sure what had happened, not until you saw the newspapers the next day, but Pettigrew (that _rat_ ) had given you a sly look and it set your teeth on edge. So you bolted. The trap sprang shut just behind you but by then you had apparated out into the wilderness to find the fifth cache of supplies - passport, cash, plane tickets, enchanted checkbook, and, lucky you, Dumbledore's service revolver.

Then you stopped being Severus Snape entirely.

What quite frankly alarmed you was how _easy_ it was. Like flipping a switch. Severus Snape died back at Hogwarts, and Mykola Lytovchenko took his place.

You liked being Mykola Lytovchenko, to be perfectly honest. Mykola Lytovchenko could give soulful, mournful eyes at the immigrations officer. Mykola Lytovchenko could get a job as an honest day-laborer. Mykola Lytovchenko smiled and laughed at their jokes about 'damn wetbacks stealing our jobs' to show he was not like the ones they despised. Mykola Lytovchenko even had a date with the foreman's spinster sister coming up next Friday, set up after three rounds of beers and half a game of pool in the local bar after they'd all finished framing that house. Mykola Lytovchenko could blend into the midwestern background with minimal fuss. But maybe most of all, Mykola Lytovchenko didn't have to _grade term papers_ , which you appreciated most of all.

But then you had to go and get yourself shot, didn't you?

* * *

[[ _Author's Notes: I really have no idea what's going on here. So consider this a fairly oddball story - a curiosity, if you will. Chapters will be painfully short but I'm hoping to keep up the pace in writing them fairly frequently. Hopefully you enjoy but if you don't, that's fine too: I recognize this is a big break from my usual style._ ]]


	2. The Fool

Being Mykola Lytovchenko was easy. It was so easy, in fact, that you began to forget yourself. So you were walking down the street when it happened - when the cop car pulled up to you. When you were shot.

You didn't know your name had been released through Interpol as a suspect in an international bombing. You didn't know that some crony had figured out your first alias, and you didn't know how it was all starting to come apart at the seams like some badly knitted sweater. You were just worrying about your date with a co-worker's spinster sister. In all honesty you expected to discover that the sister had her reasons for being a spinster, and to spend half the evening people-watching in mutual appreciation of the female form, but you never got the chance.

Instead the police car flashed its lights and chirped the siren in a singular bee-whoop that would have been silly had it not been so serious. A frowning, balding man opened his door first, opening his mouth to drawl out some warning. But the other door opened quickly to reveal a shaking younger woman who already had her hands up.

"Hands up! Get your hands up, you scum!"

Well, that's not an order you were intent on disobeying, even as your mind spins with possibility. This is not, quite frankly, a position you wanted to be in. Time to play dumb and run at first chance. But not quite yet.

"Maria, put that damn thing away," the older man grumbles. "He's probably not even the man we're looking for -"

"He is! _He is!_ I saw the sketch Interpol put out, it's him!" Her hands are shaking like mad now, and she's hiding behind the car door.

So. How to play this?

There's few real options for you right now. And you chafe under that. So you start to raise your hands, and then something comes to you - your wand. You've still been carrying it, even though you know any magic could be used to trace your location. If you pull it out, there's a greater chance the FBI's magic division will get involved. The greater chance there'll be a slip-up as you're transferred back and forth.

You'll take those odds.

First thing first is to tip them off. Your left hand is already midway up in the air, so you bring it down to your shirt, reaching in your jacket, and -

You see her face, and you know what's happened.

The loud noise didn't tip you off immediately. You blink - flinch a little - and that's it. But her face is all pale horror, just like you imagine yours was the split-second after killing Dumbledore, that moment when you forgot yourself for a half heartbeat and the enormity of what you had done came crashing on you.

Your wand fell out onto the pavement from your hand. You looked down to see the red on your chest blossoming on your shirt. Maybe you uttered something, a soft "oh" or "damn", you can't remember, because after that you fell back into the blackness.

* * *

You woke up slowly, surrounded by soft beeping. That's the first thing you're aware of - the beeping. Some instinct told you to keep your eyes closed, and you were glad of it, because then you can hear voices.

"…FBI Agents Murphy and Cooper. Please step aside." A woman's, curt and smooth.

Another woman. More frazzled this time. "I can't. He's in the ICU, for God's sake, he's not going anywhere. You can put those handcuffs away."

"We still need to stay here as protective detail. He's wanted for questioning in a bombing in uh…" A male voice, losing the thread of the plot. "What was it, Chechnya?"

"I don't mind a guard by the door but no trying to interrogate him. He's out cold still from the surgery anyhow."

"We're here as much for his protection as yours, ma'am."

"Sure, sure. …I'll bring you two some coffee?"

"That'd be excellent. Thank you for your cooperation."

Footsteps, and then the voices are lowered again.

"I can't believe we're actually protecting this piece of shit."

" _Language_ , Murph." The woman's whisper was sharp as a whip-crack. "He's important. Sure, he's killed, but he's the only in to Voldemort's inner circle that they've got. Knowledge in that head could turn the tide of the war over in the UK."

"I'm not dying for him though." Silence, and then with more passion: "I'm not! It's nothing personal, Coop. You know that. It's just… I don't like this."

"You're not really going to smoke, are you?"

"Relax. I'm just going to chew on it a bit."

"You need to cut out that bad habit, Murph. It'll kill you someday." The distant flipping of pages, then the creak of a door. The heat of light on your face. "What all did they do to the poor man, anyway? Besides digging the bullet out… Ah, looks like he had a heart attack on the table."

"You ever been to England? They fry their lard _in lard_. I'm not really surprised."

"Still, I wouldn't like to be him when he wakes up. Most Magical medicine is, you know… neat. Bloodless. Not like having your ribs hacked open and spread apart so the surgeons can be elbow-deep in blood."

Oh Gods you are going to be sick. You are going to be _sick._ They did what to you? They did _what?_

The beeping gets a little quicker.

"Murph, you said you weren't going to light that thing."

"Just a little -"

"Listen, it's already stressing him out. Put it away."

The other female voice chimed in - "Yeah, put it away. No smoking in the hospital. It's already a miracle he's breathing on his own, he doesn't need any setbacks," she scolded.

The creak of the door again - more light on your face. The quiet shuffle of somebody nearby. "IV's still good… breathing's still good… excellent. Don't know about that elevated heart rate, though. But still within normal. Hey, you two," she said, raising her voice, "you'll tell me if you hear this going off, won't you? Just shout if you start hearing alarm bells."

"Sure thing."

"Great." Retreating now, towards the door. "I forgot to ask, on your coffees, how do you take them? I was guessing black, one sugar for you, and two creams, no sugar for you…"

Slowly, you open your eyes.

Merlin's beard, Severus, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?


End file.
